The Gospel According to James Baldwin (Greg Garrett) --- A Review
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JAMES BALDWIN: What America’s Great Prophet Can Teach Us about Life, Love, and Identity. By Greg Garrett. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023. 184 pages.
There are times when a book emerges
that offers a necessary word to our society/culture. This is especially true at
moments when we need reminding that racism is still an ever-present problem in
our context. While some of us thought that the election of Barack Obama might
usher in a new age, where race would not be a central concern, we were wrong.
Instead of entering a post-racial world, we entered an age of racial angst and
unrest when the tables in many cases have been turned, such that it is common
to hear white folks call people of color racists. Yes, we live at a time when
many white Americans feel persecuted and put upon, and they’re not backing
down. So, it’s at moments like this that we need to hear voices that speak the
truth, even if it makes us uncomfortable. Some of those voices no longer walk
in our midst, but they have left testimony that needs to be heard. Among those
figures of the recent past who have spoken the truth is James Baldwin, an
African-American author/essayist and activist.
Garrett is the Carole McDaniel
Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor University. He is also a
visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Religion and Culture and
serves as Canon Theologian at the American
Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris. It is in the context of his
vocation that Garrett has spent much time studying and teaching the life and
literature of James Baldwin.
Garrett begins and ends his book by
engaging in a pilgrimage that allows him to experience the footsteps of James
Baldwin. As an author, Garrett is white, straight, and relatively orthodox in
his Christian theology. Baldwin was Black, Gay, and not traditional, though he
grew up with a stepfather who was a preacher and spent some time as a teen
preaching in Black churches. So, Baldwin knew the Christian message and, in
many ways, lived it better than most. Although one of the country’s most
important authors, it would not surprise me to see his works banned from school
libraries because they did not fall in line with current trends. However, as
Garrett notes, based on teaching Baldwin to his Baylor students, "We
experience an enlargement of what it means to be human in Baldwin's presence,
gain burgeoning insights into why we might be here, what we are made for, how
transcendence feels, what beauty is, how we're meant to live with each other,
how are called to love each other and to be responsible for each other"
(p. 5). Such is the Gospel according to James Baldwin.
To read The Gospel According to
James Baldwin in essence takes us on a pilgrimage through Baldwin’s life
and work. After couching what is to come in terms of a pilgrimage, in the
second chapter of the book Garrett introduces us to "The Life of James
Baldwin." According to Garrett, Baldwin was born in Harlem in 1924, the
grandson of a slave, and never knew his biological father. Garrett points out
that Baldwin "knew from an early age that he was Black and that he was
smart, and that if he was going to escape the crippling poverty and his family
endured, ...it was going to have to be through that intelligence." (p.
11). While he never pursued education beyond high school, he became one of
America's great intellectuals. That intellect was on full display when he held
his own in a debate with the Yale-educated conservative and founder of the National
Review, William F. Buckley. His writing talent was recognized early and
nurtured by one of his teachers. As he moved into adulthood, he began his
writing career, publishing essays in major magazines. Nonetheless, he came to
believe that if he stayed in the US he would end up on a path to
self-destruction, so he boarded a ship to France, where he lived as an
expatriate in Paris. It was there that while he struggled financially, he met a
young Swiss artist who was the love of his life. It was while living in
Switzerland that he finished his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953),
a book that made his name. Garrett takes us from there through Baldwin's life,
lifting up his written work and experiences of life, much of which was spent in
the south of France. But his spirit still lives, and his voice still speaks.
In a chapter titled "Baldwin
as Prophet of Humanity," Garrett reveals Baldwin's own sense of purpose.
That was to be a prophet in line with Jeremiah. In this role, he sought to call
people to account on matters of race and justice, identity, and culture. He
claimed that it was because of his love of America that he felt called to
engage in perpetual criticism of the nation by reminding white Americans of
their delusions of innocence (such sentiment might not sit well with many white
Americans today). As a prophet, Baldwin also spoke to matters of culture.
Garrett writes that "For Baldwin, art, literature, and culture are central
ways we understand ourselves and the world we occupy, and so he held his roles
as artist and critic to be sacred" (p. 28). He believed that good art
enlarges us while bad art puts us in cages. Thus, he could be highly critical
of art and literature that he felt did not enlarge. He was concerned when art,
literature, and film glossed over hard truths, wanting them to depict society
critically and honestly. That's what he sought to do as he addressed matters of
race, faith, and identity.
The title of the book speaks of the
Gospel, and so we might expect some words on matters of faith. Garett doesn't
disappoint us as he offers a chapter titled "Baldwin on Faith." According
to Garrett, this former teen preacher might leave the church behind as an
adult, but he speaks in his works to matters of faith and uses the
"language of church, the Bible, and theology" in his works. Among the
works I wish were available is an unfinished play titled "Welcome
Table," which speaks to matters I'm concerned about (an open eucharistic
table). Perhaps we can learn something from his separation from
institutionalized Christianity, as he bore witness to the failings of both
white and black churches. Garrett points out that "To the end of his life,
Baldwin spoke of the concept of the welcome table, a place where this
brotherhood and sisterhood, this kind of live, this kind of unity might be
possible" (p. 79).
As one might expect, Baldwin
devoted much of his life and work, his literature and his activism, to matters
of race. He experienced the full impact of racism and addressed it, even as the
Civil Rights Movement was fully underway. He reminds us that racism has been
with us as a nation from the beginning, and unfortunately, it continues to be
with us long after his death. Nevertheless, Baldwin helps us wrestle with this
stain on our society. Baldwin believed, rightly so, that race is a social
construct that has been erected by white folks to subjugate Black people and
other people of color. This construct has damaged both Black and White. One of
the stories Garrett tells involves a meeting in 1963 that Baldwin helped set up
with Bobby Kennedy, who was, at the time, still the Attorney General, with a
set of influential African Americans. What we see here is that Kennedy called
the meeting in many ways to let this group of African-American thought leaders know
how much he and the administration had done and was taken aback when his
conversation partners challenged him. It serves as a reminder of how
well-meaning white people fail to truly understand the realities experienced by
people of color. Despite everything he experienced he remained optimistic about
the future. Unfortunately, that optimism has suffered from a racist backlash that
has taken place in recent years. Nevertheless, he offers a witness that
addresses where we fall short. Related to matters of race, Garrett takes us to
a discussion of "Baldwin on Justice." Here we discover that Baldwin
spoke not only to race but to other matters of injustice, including poverty and
incarceration. He invites us to speak out.
Besides writing about faith, race, and justice, Baldwin also addressed questions of identity. Garrett points out that if we examine closely the titles of many of Baldwin's works, we will discover they speak to a lack of knowing and being known. When it came to identity, when being interviewed, Baldwin often resisted defining himself. According to Garrett’s analysis, in Baldwin’s mind, there will come a day "when we reach that New Jerusalem, when we all sit at the Welcome Table, there will be no need for names, labels, distinctions, or identities that divide or group us. Not the ones imposed on us by others, nor the ones we chose to use to define ourselves" (p. 143). Of course, we're not there yet, so the question of identity continues to be a matter of concern for Baldwin and us. Therefore, as we examine his works, including his final unfinished play “The Welcome Table,” we discern Baldwin’s desire for us to reject the status quo and "work toward a future where hatred and prejudice will, always, be overwhelmed by love" (p. 160). That is Gospel.
Garrett closes The Gospel According to James Baldwin, where he began. That would be on pilgrimage. His pilgrimage with Baldwin takes him to Leukerbad in the Swiss Alps. It is there, where Baldwin went early in life, that Garrett decided to set aside for the moment the book I’m reviewing and finished a novel he had been working on for six years. It was there in Leukerbad that Baldwin put the finishing touches on his first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain. Thus, he returns to this important place in Baldwin's life to reflect on Baldwin's influence on his own life and work. While Baldwin might be an unlikely saint, Garrett believes that is exactly what he is. As he writes: "Saints are not saints because they're picture-perfect. They're saints because they show up and put their hands in the real and get them dirty. And they're saints because they inspire us." (p. 164). This is what Garrett believes St. James Baldwin does in his life and his works. With that, Greg Garrett invites us to explore the Gospel that James Baldwin revealed in his life and works even if he might be an unlikely saint.
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